Gardening Articles: Landscaping :: Container Gardening & Ponds

New Black and Gold Cannas

by Charlie Nardozzi

Seven years ago a new canna lily from South Africa took the gardening world by storm. Tropicanna canna features bright orange flowers and multicolored leaves with pink, yellow, red, orange, and green stripes.

Now two new versions of this popular tropical plant are on the scene. Tropicanna Black and Tropicanna Gold have the same growth characteristics as the original Tropicanna, but different colored leaves and flowers. Tropicanna Black features purple-black leaves and bright red flowers. Tropicanna Gold has golden yellow flowers and leaves with green and yellow stripes.

All three cannas grow 6 feet tall at maturity -- smaller when grown in containers. They grow best in full sun on well-drained, fertile soils. Because theyre tropical plants, the bulbs need to be dug and stored in fall in areas where the ground freezes in winter.

For more information on Tropicanna Black and Tropicanna Gold, go to: Tesselaar.